


Stonefield Vignettes

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Dawn Before the Rest of the World [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge, 221B Ficlet, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, butler!sherlock, gardener!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22010353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: A collection of ficlets of Gardener!John and Butler!Sherlock. Written based on prompts from the 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge posted by MissDavisWrites on tumblr.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Dawn Before the Rest of the World [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/103292
Comments: 118
Kudos: 207





	1. Snowflake

After a day spent raking up deadfall from beneath the hedges, John’s nose was numb and wanted to run, and his fingers were stiff with cold. Despite these discomforts, with only an hour to pass before he was expected in Stonefield’s downstairs kitchen for supper with the staff, John had yet another project to do, and so wasted no time. Once he’d scrubbed away the day’s work from his hands and face, and the back of his neck, he angled the lamp just so, hunched over the rickety little table in the corner of his shared cottage bedroom, and squinted concentration as he worked.

He jogged across the grounds to the house, was still the last to arrive at the table despite his effort to hurry. He carried in the pocket of his trousers the little notebook where he kept his sketches, its pages bulging from tucked-in scraps of treasure.

“Kind of you to join us, Watson,” Sherlock intoned as John took his seat, the mild irritation in his voice mostly put-on, John knew, for benefit of the rest of the staff there gathered. Few of them were listening, lost in their own chatter, and anyway John felt sure he’d soon enough be forgiven for his late arrival.

Nonetheless, he arranged his face to reflect chastisement and said, “Beg your pardon, Mr Holmes.”

“Granted. Miss Hooper, if you please.” It was Sherlock’s way of demanding housekeeper Molly quiet the maids so the meal could begin in peace.

Once the staff had passed platters and tucked in to the meal of wonderfully warming mutton stew and mounds of roasted potatoes, and were busy with lightweight gossip and the buttering of bread, John leaned his knee against Sherlock’s beneath the table and caught his eye. Sherlock’s expression remained stoic, but he lifted his eyebrows and asked, “Will you join me for a glass of port after supper, Watson?”

“Thank you, it would be my pleasure, Mr Holmes.”

Later, in Sherlock’s room, they forewent the port--in any event, it was never more than mere pretense to allow them time alone together--and instead reclined side-by-side on the narrow metal-framed bed, in shirtsleeves and without shoes. They greeted each other with tender kisses, but John broke them apart before too much heat arose between them.

“I’ve something for you,” he said, and got to his feet to fish the book from his pocket.

Sherlock’s expression was heartbreakingly soft, and John’s eyes prickled.

“Don’t look so disbelieving, my own,” he murmured. “If I could, I would give you the world.”

A pale flush coloured Sherlock’s cheeks.

“Until then,” John went on, and resumed his seat on the bed, hip to hip with Sherlock. He let his book fall open where it wished to, and began to pluck out and unfold lacy filigrees of newsprint, passing each to Sherlock for his approval.

“Paper snowflakes,” Sherlock said, with precisely the sort of quiet delight in his voice John had hoped for. “These are lovely. Look how delicate.”

John went on opening folded sheets of all sizes, no two--of course--exactly alike.

“You made them?” Sherlock asked. They were beginning to pile up across their laps, and on the quilt around them. “Heavens, how many?”

“I started out to make twenty-four, for Advent. But then I thought of your birthday, so I made thirty-eight. And then I thought of how they look a bit like stars, and how I wish I could pluck all the stars down and tie them into handsome buttonholes for you, and I just kept on.”

Sherlock touched his hand, and his chin, and turned him and kissed him. “So how many?” he prompted.

“There are seventy-three. Only because I ran out of time, today being the first of December.” John held one tiny one between his thumb and forefinger, touched its pointed corner to the center of Sherlock’s lower lip, which made him smile.

“They’re wonderful.”

“You are.”

They went on admiring the paper snowflakes, Sherlock praising and John puffing up with pride, until they had minutely examined every and all. They saved the favourite few, and made love amidst the rest.


	2. Wish

High summer, the air too still to allow them much motion, a moon-dark night and a sky riotous with stars. John lay on his back on top of a checkered picnic rug he’d pilfered from the linen press, assuming (probably rightly) that Molly would forgive him adding to the laundry chores once he’d brought her a bouquet and shuffled apologies. Sherlock had started out seated on the wrought iron bench John had installed at the edge of the burial plot, but eventually had been persuaded down onto the blanket, but refused to recline and so sat upright with the bench-edge bisecting his spine. John’s head rested on his thigh, and they spoke in hushed voices. The lantern he’d carried to light their way sat dark and cold beside them.

“Look at them fly,” John marveled, as the two watched the silent pyrotechnics of a meteor shower, stars dashing across the sky, trailing glitter in their wakes. “Chasing each other.”

Sherlock raked three fingers through the fringe across John’s forehead and hummed.

“Do you suppose they’re lovers, too?” John mused. “In a hurry to be together.”

“What a fanciful notion,” Sherlock replied, moved as ever by John’s tendency toward romantic poetry in even the most mundane of circumstances. Not that the dozens, perhaps hundreds of hectic stars were a mundanity, of course; Sherlock appreciated the spectacle as much as the weight of John’s head resting in his lap.

John asked, “What will you wish for?” and Sherlock let go a small huff of laughter. He had long since put away childish notions of magic or miracles, knew better than to long for anything beyond the four walls of Stonefield Hall, where he was bound to live and work and eventually die--likely to be buried just there, between the blackberry hedge and his mother’s grave--with nothing more or less to dream of, or expect. Wishes were not something with which he had any contemporary acquaintance, and found he could not even call up a memory of any he’d had in the past. It seemed to him that to open oneself the that sort of frivolous hope was to invite in heartache and dissatisfaction. When life was a set course of predictable routine from morning until forever, why torment oneself with a wish for more, or different?

He said none of these things, instead trailed his fingertip down the length of John’s nose. John leaned up and caught it with a brushing kiss, and a smile Sherlock felt more than saw in the blue-velvet dim. Sherlock asked him, “What is your wish, John?”

In a tone Sherlock by then had come to know well--of contentment and a little disbelief, warm with adoration--John’s easy response was, “Now I’ve got you, my own one, I’ve nothing left to hope for. I’ve no need to make a wish.”

Sherlock tipped up his face toward the stars and murmured, “Nor have I.”


	3. The More the Merrier, Lights

Sherlock heaved a great sigh, unashamedly naked with bedclothes carelessly arranged to provide only minimal modesty, leaning heavily on one elbow while waving the other hand through the air.

“Oh, Watson!” he exhaled, with stageworthy drama and a melancholy shake of his head. His hair was positively mad, not just free from its pomaded, barely-tame standard, but truly wild two hours after a bath without further tending. His cheeks were flushed hotly pink, as was his neck and most of his chest. The bottle of Scotch whisky he’d been gifted by the Colonel at Christmastide leaned half-empty against his side.

“Watson, oh,” he echoed himself, and his hand found his forehead in a motion John had only ever seen in Punch and Judy shows, indicating a confounding state of emotional crisis. “Oh, will people _ever_ learn?”

“Learn what in particular, my love?” John replied, smiling and licking his lips. He had never seen Sherlock in such a state, for he was moderate in his every habit; the spectacle of a philosophical, not-quite-maudlin, drunken Sherlock Holmes was as amusing as it was amazing.

An exaggerated shrug, with heavy-lidded eyes. “It’s quite natural,” he said, with assurance and finality. “S’not as if I. . .or you, we. . .” He gestured to them both in turn, while he raised the bottle to his lips and sipped back more of the whisky. “Can’t change the natural order of things. Or of a man!”

John raised his eyebrows and checked the time on Sherlock’s set-aside pocket watch. He’d soon have to dress and school his stumble all the way back to his cottage.

“You had a wife,” Sherlock said. “S’not as if you didn’t try. And I was.” He grimaced. “Married to my work. Because of--what? _Expectations_ , Watson.”

“Yes, well. This is a topic perhaps better addressed in a more sober tone,” John said gently. He reached for the bottle, but Sherlock held it, took another deep slug before surrendering. “Though I appreciate you’re on to something rather significant. If anyone could change the bible and the minds of all mankind, I’d put my money on you.”

Sherlock was lying back with one arm flung across his eyes. “We’re not the first, nor will we be the last, Watson.”

“I agree.”

“John,” he said, and rolled to his side, groping for John’s body, catching him by the hip and chin. “My very dearest John.”

“That’s better.” They kissed with smoky-sour mouths; when John’s eyes closed he felt as if the whole room was spinning anti-clockwise. Sherlock reached between their bodies to take John in the curve of his long-fingered hand. “Ah, my own,” John sighed. “Bit soon, I’m afraid,” for they had already once driven each other over the edge of pleasure, not an hour before, “Not to mention the effects of the drink.” Sherlock caught his eye, and looked mischievous in a way that was so unlike him, John could not but be charmed to the point of his heart fluttering a bit.

“Let me try,” Sherlock intoned, low and lower in his velvety voice that never failed to bring a tingle to the back of John’s neck. “It’s an order.”

What could John do but what he’d been told? He resettled his pillow as his slurry-voiced, wild-haired beloved sank low and lower in the little metal bed.

Sherlock heaved a great sigh, forehead weighty against the palm of his right hand while he tried to steady the left enough to dip his pen into the pot of ink on his desk.

“Oh. Watson,” he whispered through a dry mouth, tongue fat and sticky with the previous night’s liquour-leavings and that morning’s rushing bile. What was left of the bottle of Scotch whisky he had pressed into the hand of one of the younger footmen with an order to pour it out on the ground behind the stables and never let it return to his sight. Doubtless the boy had smuggled it back to his own bedroom, to share later with other young men during late-night cards games, but the importance of never smelling or seeing it again outweighed Sherlock’s insistence on obedience from the staff.

“Watson. Oh.” He set down his pen across the page of his ledger book, its figures swimming in front of hazy eyes. “This is a valuable lesson.”

“For you, it certainly seems to be,” John replied, trying to hide his amusement behind his sympathy for Sherlock’s sorry state.

“I’ve been stealing into the rooms with the fewest windows, avoiding the glare from every pane. Must it be so bright?” The last he asked in a tone of indignity.

“The sun? I’m afraid it can’t be helped. Natural order of things.” John bit down on a grin. “Anyway, I brought you this.” John set down a cup of lemonade he’d concocted, generous with both lemon and sugar, and with a bruised sprig of mint pushed down into it. Beside it, a tin of ginger sweets.

“Never,” Sherlock moaned, and touched his midsection.

“It helps,” John told him. “You’re neither the first nor the last; you’ll survive it.”

“I cannot imagine that could possibly be true.”

“Back to bed?”

“Absolutely not, I’ve a house to run.” Sherlock sat up straight and though he looked pale and not a little sweaty, he took up the lemonade and sipped.

John gave a small smile, and acquiesced. “Yes, Mr Holmes.”


	4. Wind

Sherlock’s watch was losing time. Just a few minutes a day, but it was vexing to have something upon which he relied become suddenly unreliable. It would have to be sent to London, to Arnold & Son, for repair by someone who knew what they were doing; the local clockmaker was half-blind and could never be trusted to fit the delicate works of Sherlock’s watch together properly once they were out of the case. The only other clock he trusted was one he wound himself–an 18th century German one on the mantel in the Colonel’s study.

At the moment, however, he was in the formal dining room, standing respectfully by while the lady of the house surveyed the table, laid for sixteen with delft blue china and Irish crystal. She gave instructions to the housekeeper, Molly Hooper, about the flow of the evening’s party, including how many minutes should be allowed for dessert, which ash trays the men should be offered after dinner, and which parlor games should be available to the ladies once they had moved to the drawing room.

John arrived then, followed by three footmen, every one of them carrying flower arrangements to decorate the table and sideboards.

“Watson, how lovely!” the lady of the house gushed, clasping her hands together in front of her chest. “Your impeccable eye for beauty hasn’t failed you.”

“I heartily thank you, Madam,” John replied with one of his most charming smiles.

John’s hair was disarranged to an alarming degree, for the wind was howling a warning that fair autumn was crashing into frantic winter, with no more hope of reprieve. Sherlock’s hands, clasped behind his back, itched to reach for him and smooth him back into place.

“Very fine work, Watson,” Sherlock agreed, taking one bouquet meant to sit before the large, south-facing windows on a delicate, octagonal table in the Oriental style. As he arranged it so its best side would face the dinner guests, John set another on the table, then stood upright and looked for Madam’s approval of its placement. She was delivering more instructions, this time to the footmen, and Sherlock stepped forward and around, placing himself between John and the rest of the room.

His hand flew to John’s forehead, fingers combing through his fringe, laying everything back in its proper place. He did it so quickly that he had finished even before John’s quick-changing expression had arrived at amusement from alarm via a warning glance toward the lady of the house.

“Better,” Sherlock intoned, his voice kept quiet so only John would hear.

John barely moved his lips, but Sherlock knew them intimately and so easily read them as he mouthed, _thank you_.


	5. Angel

Sherlock had fallen asleep, and John studied his lightly parted lips and the dark lace of his lashes, the smooth, the soft curl of his fingers. Flicking his gaze from Sherlock’s soft face and his notebook of rough-textured paper, John sketched quickly to capture him before he changed. Every evening they spent together in Sherlock’s little room, John passed in acute awareness of the tick of every second. Stealing these last few minutes before he must slink away into the night, back to his own bed, was a calculated risk of inviting unwanted attention to their habit of late nights behind closed doors.

Whatever anxiety he may have felt was soothed by the motion of his pencil as it slipped and slashed across the page, putting shadows beside Sherlock’s perfect nose, replicating the gentle whirl of one dark wave of hair at his temple. The soft rise and fall of his sturdy, sloping shoulder was a comforting reminder of his realness, that he was near, and alive.

He took liberties with the finishing touches, casting a cloud in the role of Sherlock’s pillow, and crowning him with a soft corona, half-edged and angled to suggest a crown, or halo.

He labeled it, _Anjell_ , and tucked the torn-out page of his book halfway beneath Sherlock’s pillow, then readied himself to go.


	6. Ashes & Soot, Warm Bath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a 221B ficlet

Sherlock had three pipes in a stand in his bedroom; two of black clay and one with a briarwood bowl and Bakelite stem, which he smoked more rarely but which John knew was his favourite. It was a beautiful thing, polished to bring out the wood’s colourful burl, with an amber-hued, opaque stem gently curved to give the pipe its elegant balance. No doubt it had been costly, and Sherlock was never one to spend an unnecessary penny for even the simplest of personal pleasures; John imagined he thought it too special--or perhaps too show-offish--to use regularly.

It was this prettiest one John plucked up and set between his teeth, learning weight and texture. It smell-tasted of Sherlock’s favoured tobacco, of the bowl’s ash and soot layer that protected the wood and cradled the leaves Sherlock expertly packed inside. 

The door rattled then and Sherlock came in, blue wool dressing gown and satin slippers, wet hair combed straight back. John grinned at him around the pipe-stem, then put it down and gestured to a nosegay in a glass jar beside the stand.

“Brought you these,” he said.

A few steps from each to meet halfway, and John nestled in a hand where neck met shoulder, stroked a thumb over the surface of his skin, still warm from the bath.


	7. Festive, Once a Year

Naturally, Boxing Day was their Christmas--the staff and stablemen, driver, cook--when none must work more than pleased them. The maids and footmen left their shoes unfastened and played guessing games, sang or recited, tried to catch each other under the sprig of mistletoe. The cook chomped a cigar end and leaned heavily on one chair-arm, watched some of the younger women moving about her kitchen, laughed at their ineptitude but happily ate every bite she was served. There were holly branches hung near the fireplace, and a wreath of cedar on both sides of the door. Candles everywhere. The kitchen was full of the noise of cracking walnuts--their shells carelessly left on the tabletop or underfoot--and the snap of paper crackers from which fell paper crowns and terrible puns and peppermint candies.

Molly Hooper and young Margaret brought the platters to the table and the cook smacked the boys’ greedy hands until after she’d prayed. Dishes were soon overflowing with roast meat and potatoes, pickles and pole beans, a spectacular terrine pieced together from scraps of others--five in one, Molly called it--dark and light breads, warm berry compote, and a dark-spiced, rummy cake.

John told the boys stories from the war, which thrilled and terrified them, each asserting his fearlessness while pointing out the cowardice of his peers, easy for them all as--God willing--they’d never have to spend a single minute of an hour, let alone a string of frozen nights, shivering in a ditch. John left out some things, lightly embellished others, told tales of his fellows as if they were his own. Even showed a card trick he’d learned in a cafe during a leave, from a French beggar no older than the hall boy.

Sherlock sat in his usual place at the head of the table, pipe close at hand, coat left behind in his room (though his waistcoat was buttoned and the chain of his pocket watch rose and fell with his breath), in an uncharacteristically slouchy posture. To John’s surprise and delight, Sherlock did not resist the festive air of the day--of the room, of the people he usually did his level best to rein in and tame--rather, he indulged it with apparent relish. The paper crown never left its perch, slightly askew to the left, atop his head. He peeled an orange by hand and dropped the skin in a pile beside his plate, ate each segment with quiet exclamations of pleasure and sweetness. Licked the juice from his fingertips.

When his turn came to entertain the assembly, Sherlock performed a Shakespeare soliloquy, with humour and pathos in every right place, garnering applause. He even bowed. There was mulled wine by the mugful, and of course the Christmas cake, with its boozy fruit left to plump and soften nearly two months. Sherlock gave gifts to the staff, books for the young ones, pens and stationery for the adults. If John had thought him marvelous before, this once-a-year version of him only served as further proof of his perfection.

Alone together at last--not _for long I’m afraid, morning always comes too soon_ \--and John held him hard and kissed him hard, again and again, silly smacking kisses on his forehead and cheeks and at last on his beautiful lips. _How have I been so blessed to have found you? My treasure. You beauty. My love, oh, my love._


	8. Chimney, Bah Humbug

John was clearly out of sorts, and had been for most of the day. He was sullenly quiet through supper, sparing quick, forced smiles and monosyllabic responses when addressed, adding nothing of his own to the evening’s conversation. Plainly not his usual jovial self, Sherlock was not the only one to have noticed; Molly had even inquired about the state of his health. “Fit as ever, thank you,” was his simple response. Beneath the table, his knee jumped away any time it brushed against Sherlock’s, and he kept his feet flat on the floor lest the toe of his boot meet Sherlock’s ankle.

In Sherlock’s room, John fidgeted with whatever came to hand—an antimacassar draped over the back of Sherlock’s armchair, the corner of the pillowslip, the handle of the wardrobe—and his breath was huffy. Sherlock unbuttoned his coat and had to wait for John to step aside before hanging it inside the wardrobe. As he did, John sat heavily on the edge of the bed, tapping his feet restlessly against the floorboards. Moving to unfasten his shirt cuffs, Sherlock smoothed his voice as he asked, “Something’s bothering you?”

“No. Nothing.” An obvious lie. A hard, frustrated sigh. “Nevermind it. I’ll pour us a drink?”

“Thank you, no.” Sherlock removed his waistcoat and necktie, heard John inhale as if to speak, then hum instead. As he loosened his shirt around the neck, he felt John rise to stand, just behind him, and turned to find him frowning furiously, neither sad nor angry, though somewhere between the two.

“That chimney sweep had his eye on you,” he said, with something like accusation in it, which Sherlock found puzzling. The sweep had arrived six minutes past the appointed hour and had not brought a helper to hold his ladder, so had pressed John into service while he made his climbs onto various sections of Stonefield’s roof, and had looked annoyingly amused when Sherlock insisted he wait to be paid until Sherlock was assured the blockage in the western flue had been completely removed; he would tolerate no more black smoke backing up into the withdrawing rooms.

“No doubt because it was I who would pay him,” he offered in reply to John’s non sequitur. John humphed a sour laugh.

“No doubt because he was imagining you under your suit,” he corrected, and Sherlock sucked a breath of shock.

“What? John, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Touched your hand when you passed over his pay, didn’t he?” John’s bright eyes were dark with jealousy Sherlock did not know what to do with.

Sherlock waved the hand in question, dismissing all of it as nonsense. “And his was so filthy it—” John caught his hand and held it, mostly by the wrist, not carefully.

“He wanted to put those filthy hands all over you, I could see it from yards away. Put them through your hair and muss it—”

“John.”

“Dirty your white shirt, ripping it open to get to you.”

John’s jaw tightened, biting down on his back teeth. He released Sherlock’s hand and Sherlock reached for him, smoothing his shoulder and the length of his arm.

“I didn’t see that at all,” Sherlock told him, truthfully.

“He shouldn’t look at you that way,” John muttered, and put his hands on Sherlock’s chest, firm at first but quickly becoming gentle, stroking over the fabric of the white shirt, across and down. “No one should.” He sounded indignant, though his voice was much softer, and then plaintive. “You’re too precious for it.”

Sherlock smiled a bit and lowered his eyes; he felt sure he would never become accustomed to John’s freely-spoken admiration of him.

“Even if he was looking, I never saw it,” Sherlock near-whispered, and petted John at the waist. “You’re the only man I see.”

“I’d have laid him out if it had gone on a minute longer, I swear it.”

“I believe you.”

They were smiling, falling back into their right places.

Sherlock persuaded John backward a few steps, pressed his shoulder to seat him on the bed.

“You know, John,” he began, and unbuttoned his shirt, peeled it back and off as he spoke. “I hope you know. I’m yours alone. And always.”

John’s gaze was penetrating and threatened to break Sherlock’s heart.

Sherlock set himself on his knees, and rested his hands on John’s thighs, calming him with soft stroking. John touched his jaw, and the edge of his ear, and traced his eyebrow with one fingertip. Gazing up at him, Sherlock reached for his belt and said. “Forever and only yours, John. Never doubt it. Never fear.”

John cradled Sherlock’s jaw in one rough-gentle hand, sighing in an entirely different way, all the while Sherlock fervently loved him.


	9. Family

Hello, Mother. I’ve brought you these. They’re from the hothouse, of course; we’d never have roses in December otherwise. I think you liked these, with the blush of pink at the heart. Quite a bit cheerier than these bare branches hanging over you--there--break these off--set them here, I’ll take them when I go.

Fresh snow for you this morning. You always said it was your favourite way to see the world outside the window. There were little feathers of ice on my bedroom window panes this morning. Don’t know why I noticed them, but they were a . . . a little something. Bit special, I suppose. Pretty.

_Heh-hem._ Not too cold, though. Well, cold of course, but the air is so still and dry. See there, the snow doesn’t even stick to my shoes.

. . . 

I want you to know, Mother. I’m.

_Ehm._

I’m not alone anymore. I don’t know if you would worry for it, but in case, _ah_ , I wanted to tell you about. Him.

John.

John Watson, he’s called. He grew the roses; he’s the gardener. It’s strange I know, it was strange to me--more that he seemed to like me than the other. I knew that about myself. Likely you did, too. Remember how fragile I was, as a boy.

Anyway. He has no fear of work. Has talents--for the flowers, and he draws, he’s an artist though he doesn’t know it. He’s kind. Hard when he needs to be, though, a real man. Kind to me. Always kind to me. He was a soldier in the war, his shoulder bothers him when the weather’s damp. Blue eyes.

He tied this buttonhole, as well. Holly and a birch twig--he’s clever that way. Sees things others wouldn’t, finds their beauty and shows it to you.

_Ha!_

Mother, he adores me.

I plan to keep him until the day I die. Then I’ll lie here beside you, Mother, with John on my other side. I don’t think you’ll mind.

No. You won’t mind.


	10. Not a Creature was Stirring, Midnight

As it was in all big houses, the downstairs rooms in Stonefield Hall were busy with noise at nearly every hour, the kitchen fire crackling while the cook whistled at her work, pots and pans clanging against the tables, worktops, and stove. The maids poured out buckets of water into slop sinks, and the footmen rattled the silver while Sherlock turned the bottles in the wine cellar. There was friendly chatter as well as the stern intonation of orders given, and the curt acknowledgement of orders received. The car on the gravel drive and the stomping and nickering of the horses. Gossip at dinner. The clatter of washing up.

John was dozing, exhausted from a day’s work and blissfully sated from an evening in Sherlock’s narrow bed. Through the strange silence of the house late at night, he heard the distant chiming of a tall clock in the Colonel’s withdrawing room, through shut doors and down winding steps, felt more than counted the twelve tones, and knew he must rouse himself before he fell asleep–once too often he’d been petted awake by Sherlock’s smooth, cool hand on his arm or chest, hissing whispers that it’s nearly morning, you must go. Better to go now.

But the bed was warm and the night was a black icy chill. He drew the quilt up around his shoulder and sought Sherlock’s bare skin beside him. His belly moved against the back of John’s fingers but his breath was silent, all the lengthy rest of him slack and still in his sleep. John longed for the lamp, or a candle, or even a match, just to see him at rest, all his curves and angles, the muss of his hair, his curled-open fingers.

The quarter-hour chimed, reminding John of empty rooms and cosseted sleepers, all quiet, all silence but the faraway muffled ring of the clock. He pressed himself to sit, slow and careful not to disturb Sherlock, folding back only his own side of the bedclothes so Sherlock would not feel the cold. Expert at dressing in the dark, he used the moonlight to half-see the laces of his boots.

There was a way to turn the doorknob, and a way to swing the door–open, then closed–to maintain the silence. The right side of the bottom step, the side that didn’t creak. Stepping soft as he could through the kitchen and out into the cold, sucking his breath at the shock of it. Hands in his trousers’ pockets and his shoulders shrugged up. Walking across the frost-crisp grass, the only man awake in the county, he imagined. The only man awake in England. The gentle crunch of his footfalls that only he could hear.

A pleasant silence, over a hateful distance.


	11. Baby Please Come Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a 221B ficlet

The stonemason had finished his day’s work and gone, and dark was settling in. John could not resist cutting one more path about the place-- their own place, where they would make their own way--in a wobbling circle, as far as the creek and wide of the foundation so he could stand back and look. The house was barely begun, just walls and a chimney mostly finished, but John’s heart swelled looking at the shell of what would be.

He had plans for sturdy, beautiful fireplaces to warm Sherlock’s evenings and smooth-polished floorboards for his slippers to shush across in the morning. Plans to tint the plaster for the walls in whatever shades would please Sherlock’s eye. A pretty table beside a comfortable armchair, with a new stand for Sherlock’s pipes. Shelves for Sherlock’s books and a deep, wide bed in which to love Sherlock and never have to get up to leave under cover of night. A kitchen where he could touch Sherlock’s elegant hand atop the table, instead of beneath.

John had long dreamed of a place to call his own, no one to answer to--not much, but enough--and had been satisfied. How much better it was, though, to be making a home for his love, his own Sherlock Holmes, in a house that John built.


	12. Wonder

_My own one, precious angel, you treasure. . ._

You spoil me with love talk, with admiring gazes and sensual pleasure to the very pinnacle of ecstasy, to the verge of madness, and I am ever humbled by it, ever grateful for it. Words escape me, though, John--my hero, my true north, my bright star--words stick in my head and my voice fails me.

Would that I could tell you, my darling dear, all that you signify and all that you embody. How your sturdy arms about me give me shelter and how your smile stings my heart with joy. That your hot-breathed whispers melt me in an instant, and that your growling utterances tingle me with shivers.

Even now, as you lie open to me, beneath me, as I trace the hollows beside firm muscle and press my mouth against tender places that sink beneath the pressure of my kiss, there is poetry in my heart that will not rise into my throat or bend my tongue to tell you that you are exquisitely beautiful, that I am a supplicant at the altar of your magnificent body, that you are sweetness and sweat and fine golden hair that stands up when I blow across it, and that all that you are is a perfect gift I surely do not deserve.

My lover--my love--what a wonder you are.


	13. Exhausted, Escape

The lady of the house had become preoccupied with the fact one of the hedges encircling her rose garden had died, a five-yard run of orange-brown interrupting the otherwise perfect evergreen circle. Though John had humbly suggested it should wait until the spring thaw, so that the old bushes could be removed and their replacements be planted immediately, she insisted she could not bear the sight of dead plants and would even prefer a bare patch to the burnt-looking shrubbery. Hence, John had spent a long morning lopping branches with pruning snips and a hand saw, then hacking stumps with an axe. Three wagon loads of discarded brush later–after lunch in the kitchen not long enough to unfreeze his toes in his wet, muddy boots–he went after the stumps, digging with spade and pick into the frozen ground to free them.

The sun was dropping behind the big house by the time he was finished, and he did wonder whether Madam would truly be pleased with the muddy scar in the ground, but he’d done as ordered, and to the best of his ability, and so in that sense, it was a day well spent. But he was cold, and his fingers were blistered, and his shoulder reminded him about the war. His day of steady exertion and the accomplishment of a task completed left him feeling satisfied. And tired.

He was famished, hurried to clean and put away his tools, then to clean himself–even changed his shirt–and was first of the men to arrive for supper, greeting the cook warmly and getting in her way–dipping a finger in the stew, tearing off the end of the bread loaf and eating it in too few greedy bites–until she swatted and scolded him.

Once he’d filled his ravenous belly with warm, peppery roast meat and twice as many potatoes as he usually took, John sat back in his chair a bit, noticed no other plate on the table was even half-empty. Sherlock gave him a quizzical look, softened by amusement, and John shrugged back at him. His palms throbbed from holding the handles of the axe and spade, and his stiff knuckles were a riot of scratches from the rough bark of branches and stumps.

Mercifully sensitive to John’s sorry state, Sherlock declined a cup of tea after dinner and invited John to join him for port in his room. No sooner was the door latched shut than John was pulling off his boots, even peeling off his socks, and stretching himself as long as he could go, down the length of Sherlock’s bed. He adjusted the pillow beneath his neck and would have closed his eyes except that he liked to watch Sherlock remove his coat and unfasten his cuffs, remove the necktie and collar, until he had softened as if on a long exhale. His own Sherlock Holmes, with his shoulders at ease and his pipe between his teeth as he puff-puffed to get it going.

Sherlock settled in his armchair, and poured himself a swallow of port though he did not lift the glass from the little table.

“You’re tired, John.”

“Mm.”

“I’ll wake you after a while, then.”

“No.” John protested, but the invitation to sleep was near-irresistible. His leaden limbs would not move, not even a hand. Not even a finger.

“Shall I read?”

“Lovely.” John managed a smile though his eyelids stayed weighted in place.

There was the sound of Sherlock lifting his book from his table, smoothing his fingers down the page once he’d opened it. Then his low, sonorous voice–“I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind.”–and though John loved to hear him, and enjoyed the story, it was no time at all before he drifted, and then sank.


	14. Christmas Present, Winter

“I’ve something for you, John.”

Sherlock slid open the narrow drawer in his wardrobe where John knew he kept his small clothes, as well as neatly tri-folded socks and two sets of hose garters to keep them obedient. John felt a thrill of anticipation; Sherlock had never given him a gift before. Aside from himself, of course.

“Just a token,” Sherlock dismissed, even as he took a seat beside John on the edge of his bed, slightly sinking them both. John, half-expecting a box wrapped in colourful paper and tied with red ribbon, nearly missed it. Once he found it, though, cradled in the bowl of Sherlock’s lovely hand, he was gut-struck, and his eyes blurred.

“May I?” Sherlock asked, gesturing, and John nodded, and sniffed. Sherlock reached for him, and John turned toward him. “It’s nothing like what you can do--I freely admit this is not even my first attempt, but the only one with which I was satisfied--”

“It’s beautiful,” John said quickly, wanting Sherlock not to ruin it for himself with self-deprecating commentary. “It’s perfect.”

Sherlock shifted his gaze from his hands--slipping the pin between the stems and the twine, into and out of the fabric of John’s shirt, then catching the twine again-- to meet John’s eyes, and favoured John with one of his genuine smiles, a pretty upward perk of the corners of his lips. He went quickly back to his work.

“Not much to work with in December, I notice,” he mused. “It gave me all that much more appreciation for your handiwork.” With one last push and pull at the head of the pin, he seemed pleased and smoothed the shirtfront with his fingers, just beside the buttonhole he’d made for John—a small pine cone, snow-in-summer, the tiniest chick from a pot of hens-and-chickens John had left on the kitchen table for the season. “You look very smart,” Sherlock said with finality.

“I’ll wear it to church tonight,” John said. “The infants’ play, then the carols.”

“The music of the season is one of its only redeeming features,” Sherlock informed him. “That, and. . .” He cleared his throat and rose to stand, crossing to find his pipe and matches, commencing to busy his hands with them.

“And?” John prompted, with some amusement. He stood, too, to admire himself in the oval glass above the wash stand. Sherlock’s buttonhole was as good as any he’d ever made--moreso because he’d made it a Christmas gift to John.

“It’s been a very long time since I’ve had any loved ones to whom I might give a present,” Sherlock said, an explanation rather than an ending to his original statement.

John turned and stepped across to draw Sherlock into his arms, leaning back to see him, with hands clasped behind Sherlock’s waist.

“My own,” John smiled at him. “My wish come true.”

Sherlock’s unlit pipe lay slack in his hand as John kissed him, pulled and persuaded him back toward the bed, and even as they lost themselves in a deep embrace, both were careful not to crush their lovely, hand-tied buttonholes.


	15. Miracle, Sentiment, And to All a Good Night

_“Gas! Gas! Gas!”_

_John’s eyes burned and filled, his nose ran, he was hot and cool with sweat. Another blind panic, there was one every day, sometimes more than one. His throat was full and he could not clear it; his lungs tightened painfully–a sharp stab on inhalations that were mere sips of air, a squeezing sensation as he tried to expel air too hot and too thick to breathe. Sleeve of his jacket over his mouth and nose, blinking away the fiery wet film from his eyes, he went for his mask._

_No mask. No mask! His hand disappeared into his rucksack, again and again, but it was bottomless, empty. He reached and swatted and caught only air. He looked around him, for help or hope, but around him mens’ faces were burned raw, their mouths frozen in grimaces open wide, lying across each other’s laps with their heads at terrible angles._

_A whistle of incoming mortar. Was he the only man left alive? He was choking. The explosion, and there was nothing–nothing–left for him to breathe. He clawed at the muddy side of the ditch, climbing for air like a drowning man. His boots slid out from beneath him and there was nowhere for his toes to catch. A slide down, his fingers digging into loose dirt, then a fall that went on forever._

“Gas! Gas!” John’s fingernails scratched trails into his own chest, fighting for breath as he swam to the surface of sleep. “I– Will! I…”

Sherlock touched John’s wrist, his own voice thick with disuse. “John. You’re dreaming. _John_.” The room was lightly moonlit, he could find the shape of John beside him but could not discern the features of his face. Holding his hand, Sherlock petted him; he was gasping. “Wake up, John.”

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. Oh, god, they’ve killed me.”

“You’re breathing; you’re alive. _John_. It’s a nightmare.” Sherlock leaned away to turn on the bedside lamp, blinked hard against the sudden brightness. He turned back to John, stroked the side of his face. “Look. You’re here. You’re home.”

John’s head jerked sideways, turning away from his pillow, then his gaze darted around the room.

“See? We’re here safe in our bedroom.”

“Jeezus.”

“You’re all right.” Sherlock ran fingers through John’s hair, then down the side of his neck. After a few silent moments, John’s breath quieted, and he sighed, blinking heavily.

“I said his name. Didn’t I?” he asked, apology gilding the edge of his voice.

“Nevermind it,” Sherlock reassured. They were murmuring, just above a whisper. “You loved him. And I of all people know how fiercely you love.”

John sighed through a sad smile.

“What if I hadn’t survived?”

“You did,” Sherlock said quickly. “I don’t like to think about it.”

“It’s a wonder I lived to find you. You see why I think of you as my prize.”

Sherlock grinned, then shifted close to kiss him now he’d caught his breath.

“And now this,” John marveled, his shoulders moving to describe a tour of the bedroom. “Our own house. You beside me every night. Every morning.”

Sherlock kissed him, and stayed close.

“What a miracle it is,” John whispered, then added, as if correcting himself, “You are.”

Sherlock couldn’t help himself. “There is no such thing as a miracle, John.”

“Let me have just this one, my darling, won’t you? Turn out the light.”

“Will you be able to sleep?” Sherlock asked, doused the light, and settled back into John’s light embrace. John hummed assent. “Goodnight, then.”

“ ‘night.…you miracle.”

Sherlock smiled in the dark, and maneuvered John’s hand between their two chests, cradled between Sherlock’s own hands, to hold him fast the whole night through.


End file.
